Legion of Honor

(C) Intelligent Systems and Nintendo

-0-

09. Half-Blood Child

Lyn hated waiting.

She didn't think she was the impatient type; it was very difficult to grow into impatience after being trained in both hunting and weaving, and anyway she had never minded waiting around for her friends unless it was about something ridiculous. No, waiting for the little things never bothered her--it was waiting for the important things that caused her blood to heat up with anxiety and her gaze to dart from here to there like a rabbit bolting from a wolf. Oyon-baba had explained once that it was because of her being born in the first wind month of the year, causing her to be calm when she was relaxed but making it easy for her emotions to spiral out of control whenever they were churned up. She was told that it was the great conflict of her affinity and she would have to defeat it if she ever wanted to realize her true potential.

It wasn't something Lyn believed in, because she remembered waiting for her father and mother to emerge from the attack on the Lorca, the attack her father had forced her to flee. She had waited so long that night, until the poisoned water and the chill of the autumn night had caused her to collapse.

Ten days later she had woken up, only to realize she had lost everything.

That was the price of waiting. That was the price of hoping futilely for the gods to do something, anything, while at a safe distance away. Waiting did nothing but make her a passive accomplice in the crimes of others. Waiting got others killed. She bore the weight of so many deaths because she had failed to act, and even now that she had promised to go back and avenge the deaths of her tribe, it was still too late in a sense, wasn't it?

Now she had to wait again, outside the ger where the healer of the tribe she and her friends had been taken to worked to save Sain's life.

Father Sky, Mother Earth, please be merciful, she pleaded in her mind, I don't want to lose another...

Her hands trembled. Even when she clenched them together they still trembled. Beside her, Florina stood quietly--almost too quietly. Lyn wanted to reach out to her friend, but her hands wouldn't stop trembling and she didn't want to reveal to anyone, not even her best and dearest friend, just how scared she was. She had to remain strong for everyone, and she clung to that thought and tried to keep her trembling hidden, buried.

She had to.

Wil paced, like all of his energy was swirling around in his legs. Isn't he also of the wind affinity? Lyn wondered, trying to grasp at anything that could distract her. Maybe that was why he was also so restless, maybe his legs and her hands were afflicted with that same awful feeling. It made her jealous, a little, that he could let it out so boldly while all she could do was clench her hands and stare at the closed flap of the ger like Kent. Kent, who crouched close to where she stood and stared with a single-minded fervor, one hand holding the side of his head like he had a headache. Maybe he did. Despite how he always seemed at once exasperated by and resigned to Sain's ways, Lyn knew there was no one else closer to him.

Without Sain, there only seemed to be a great silence around them that echoed in her heart.

The flap was pushed aside and the healer, a man she thought was in his mid-thirties and looked just as expressionless as Rath had ever been, stepped out of the ger. His gaze fixed onto her face without even the most cursory acknowledgment of her friends, and somewhere deep within Lyn's mind she felt a twinge of indignation because she understood that casual dismissal for what it was. When the Lorca had crossed paths with other tribes, she had noticed that same dismissal towards her mother. Sometimes, even towards herself.

Sacae was for Sacaeans, some of the more prideful tribes insisted. Only Sacaeans.

The healer nodded, not in greeting, but as a gesture to talk privately. Irritated, scared, and very mindful of the rules of gratitude and tribal honor, Lyn swallowed down her words and followed him away from the ger. It was only once they were some distance away from the back of the ger when he looked her in the eye and stated, "His body still lives."

The sudden emotional change made her feel almost nauseous, like she was on that ship again and trying to get used to the constant rocking of the waves. What tempered the sudden rush of relief and glee was the insistent gravity of the man--if Rath's presence was understated, then this healer's was indomitable. "But?" Lyn urged after a moment of silence.

"He will die."

She stared at him--it was all she could do in that single moment. "What?" The healer pointed to his collarbone.

"This fractured in the fall," he said, and she had to tell herself that the disdain she thought she had heard in that last word was just a trick of her mind or else she would do something unthinkable.

"But what about the arrow?" she demanded.

The healer frowned. "It was poorly made," he said, and she had the feeling he was more bothered by that than the fact that it had struck an ally. "Nothing vital was hit."

"Then, his collarbone?"

"It will heal if he wakes."

"He's still unconscious?" Lyn asked, surprised. The sun, so high before, now signaled it was time for a light evening meal. Wil had recovered from his own head injury much more quickly, even if he had suffered its effects for a few days afterward.

"When children fall, most wake by the second or third day. Those ride again. After that, there is no chance." The healer looked up at the sky. "Children heal fast."

"Then," she pressed, "what about an adult man?"

The look she received in response revealed the depth of the disgust he had for her question. "Sacaean adults don't fall," he stated, and if she thought she had only imagined the disdain before, now she knew how present it was in the healer's every word. It made her clench her jaw in humiliation to receive such naked disdain from a fellow plainsman, but she could not say anything in response because of the help he had extended to her since they had arrived.

No, she told herself, that's not important. Right now I have to make sure Sain lives.

"How many days?" she asked. The healer looked down from the sky, a weariness to his gaze that made her realize that he still cared about whether Sain lived or died, no matter his feelings about a foreigner.

"Five."

Lyn tried to repeat the word, but it was stuck on her tongue and she couldn't force it out. She could only stare at him because that wasn't enough.

That wasn't enough!

"Why?" was the word she chose instead, because she needed to know. This was Sain's life they were talking about, she had to know!

Deliberately, the healer looked away. "We leave then."

That wasn't fair, she wanted to say. Sain's life depended on the charity of this tribe. This was a life that depended on them, so why couldn't they stay? She wanted to demand that this tribe, their benefactor, stayed for as long as Sain needed. But she couldn't.

She understood.

She was of the Lorca, so she understood. She was Sacaean, so she understood. Those who were able rode with the tribe, and those who could not, did not. If a horse, or a goat, couldn't continue, it was killed.

They were nomads. That was life.

And because of that, she didn't need to ask any other questions. She knew the answers, because she had lived them with the rest of the Lorca. If Sain didn't wake at the end of those five days, then there was no question of what needed to happen. It would be mercy.

This was what it meant to be a nomad, and she and her friends were nothing if not nomads now.

"I can't do that," she whispered. "He's my friend."

The healer looked at her. She could feel the weight of his stare, and then he began to walk away. After a few steps, he stopped. "Are you of the Bulgar tribe?" he asked, and she twitched at the insult in those words. Standing a little straighter, she glared at his back.

"I am Lyn of the Lorca," she stated. "Hassar, the chieftain, was my father. I know the gifts of Father Sky and Mother Earth, and I hear their words and know their love. I am proud of who I am, as a true daughter of the plains."

He inclined his head. "You have come home, but your heart still lingers in other lands."

Lyn looked down, ashamed. He was right. What was she doing, posturing in front of a fellow Sacaean? This was not their way. "I'm sorry," she said. He made a sound of assent and began to walk away, but then she realized there was something else she needed to ask, something else honor demanded. "What tribe is this? I want to thank your chief for letting us in."

"We are the Kutolah," the healer said, turning around. "Our chief is Dayan, the Silver Wolf."

"Thank you," Lyn said, troubled by an odd feeling of not-quite-remembering something. "You don't need to worry about Sain. We'll watch over him."

"That would be best," he replied. "The Kutolah is a proud tribe."

She knew that, because while a certain feeling of having forgotten something nagged at her, she did know the Kutolah. They were one of the three great tribes, comparable only to the Bulgar tribe that ruled Sacae's main trade city and the Djute tribe, who roamed the western part of the country. The Bulgar tribe aside, the Kutolah and the Djute stayed away from foreign faces whenever they could. She knew the others would do everything they could to help Sain, but she would have to tell them that unfortunate reality of Sacae. That was all she was going to tell them. Five days, nomadic mercy...those she would keep to herself.

It wasn't going to be necessary, she told herself. Sain would pull through. He was strong enough.

He was.

-0-

"I don't really get it," Wil had said, his brows furrowed. "But if that's how it has to be, then okay." Kent had said nothing at all, the small frown on his face hiding as much of his feelings as it showed them, and Florina had fretted with a small, "Really, Lyn?" but had kept her head down when Lyn had looked at her. That was the sum of their responses when she had told them the first night that they would have to keep a low profile. She really hadn't wanted it to sound as if the Kutolah hated foreign-looking people, but it seemed to come out that way no matter what words she used. What mattered most was that they looked after Sain until he woke up.

She couldn't bring herself to say anything about the limited amount of time, or what would have to happen if Sain simply never woke up again.

That was why, three days into their stay, Lyn had enough and left the ger where the five of them were housed--a tight fit, but they were used to staying together. Time was running out and she felt useless sitting at Sain's side, trying to give him water and broth in the silence that an awake Sain never would've stood for. By the light of Father Sky's eyes, she was missing being hit on by him. If--when he woke up, she swore she'd endure it just once without comment, just so Kent could rebuke him and Wil would laugh while Florina edged towards her to have someone to duck behind once Sain's roving eyes found her next.

Lyn clenched her hands at the thought, and walked faster towards the chieftain's ger. Now was not the time to be distracted by hopeful reminiscing, but for action.

The doorway of the ger of a Sacaean chief was always marked with the image of the animal that represented the chieftain most. Lyn could still fondly remember the falcon that sat above the doorway of her family's ger; done in the stylistic imagery of basic shapes, much like the hem work of Sacaean clothing, it was a familiar presence in her childhood and she had loved it when her father would let her sit on his shoulders to put it up once they set up camp in their traditional winter or summer sites. Of course she had been too old for that for several years already, but the memory of it now made her wipe at her eyes with one vicious swipe of the back of her sword hand. The icon above the Kutolah chief's ger was a wolf; fitting, she thought, remembering what the healer had called him: Dayan, the Silver Wolf. The silverback wolf of north-central Sacae, along the bordering mountains with Ilia, was known as being one of the most deadly animals of the plains, its monstrous strength augmented by sheer numbers and uncanny intelligence.

Just like the Kutolah.

There were two guards in front of ger's entrance, both men with swords on their hips. Only Sacaean men were allowed to learn the ancient swordplay of the myrmidons, which was why Lyn inwardly smirked when she noticed both of their gazes on the swords she carried on her left hip--even in a place as safe as the Kutolah camp, she didn't feel comfortable unless she wore them. "I am Lyn of the Lorca, and I wish to pay my respects to your chief," she stated.

"Daughter of the Lorca, the chieftain has been expecting you," said one of the guards, and she nodded in acknowledgment before stepping forward and pushing the curtains in front of the doorway aside. Inside was Chief Dayan along with a few men of the tribe, surrounded by the thick odor of smoke from the kanja weed that brought nostalgic thoughts into her mind, but Lyn didn't think it would be an exaggeration to say that the Kutolah chieftain looked like he could've swapped places with any of the other men with him and she wouldn't have blinked an eye. He looked young, and the goatee with the heavier mustache he wore didn't change that. Her own father had been young, along with her mother, but they had something about them that made them feel older, as if they had gone through trials together and gained wisdom and a certain bearing from their experiences. She didn't sense that from the man who sat the head of the small group, but no one else would be allowed to sit there but the chieftain.

"Hassar's daughter," Chief Dayan remarked. "Sit with us."

Lyn did so carefully onto one of the cushions directly across from the chieftain, mindful of her position as a woman. It wasn't fair, but even in the Lorca women were not allowed at many of the meetings her father held with his advisors. There was the men's world and the women's world, and as Oyon-baba had once told her, they only met at mealtimes and at night. Her mother had told her that it wasn't so different back in her home country but had refused to elaborate. As Lyn took off her swords and placed them in front of her as a sign of respect, she thought she could understand what her mother had meant now that she had experienced Caelin's knights and their idea of chivalry for herself.

The image of Sain, pleading with a confused Ninian to allow him the honor of protecting her during her convalescence while Nils tried to shoo him away, entered Lyn's mind and hardened her resolve.

"Daughter of the Lorca, we have been expecting your presence," one of the men said, exhaling streams of wispy smoke as he lowered the pipe. She watched him hand it to the man next to her, knowing that it would never be given to her. All she could do was lower her head, her eyes facing forward.

"Yes, I've been watching over my friend."

"None of them are Sacaean." This, from the man sitting to the left of the chieftain. Lyn nodded.

"We've survived together."

Said the first man who had spoken: "What of the rest of your tribe in Bulgar?"

"Our goals are different. They wish to live in peace, but I will avenge the Lorca."

The pipe was handed to Chief Dayan, but he held it in his hands as he watched her from under his full eyebrows. "The falcon still flies," he mused. "You honor your tribe and your father, heir of the Lorca."

His words made fire burn behind her eyes, the sudden emotions threatening to engulf her and turn her into ash. With effort she kept her expression rigid, calm. "I only do what I must. I hear my fallen tribesmen cry out for one of their own to avenge them, and I know they cannot have any peace until the last Taliver bandit has been struck down by my sword."

"That must be why you wield the Mani Katti," Chief Dayan replied. "It is Father Sky's eye, open wide to see and destroy evil before it. It will not fail you so long as you can see in front of you with clear eyes."

"You ally with foreign faces. Can they understand what it means for we of the plains to avenge the fallen?" asked the man to the right of the chieftain, his mustache streaked with gray. "Or, can you?"

Lyn felt her face burn at the insult laid bare before her; she could not help herself. "I am a Sacaean warrior, born of the plains! I have been to Lycia, and I know that their morals are twisted. They hide when they do good because it isn't accepted among them. That must be why my mother fled, because my father and my tribe could see her heart and knew that despite her looks, she was the same as any true Sacaean woman." Bringing her hand to her chest, she said, "That is the same with me. That is the same with my friends. I won't bear your insults towards any of us!"

The old man looked ready to retort, if not for his chieftain's raised hand. "We have all known of Hassar's decision to take a foreign wife, even if we all wondered why he would insult our sisters by shunning them. I see the daughter he has given life to, and I am pleased to recognize one of our own."

That the Kutolah chieftain would honor her again and again made her more eager to keep his praises, suddenly greedy. She came here expecting nothing, and now she craved for more. It was not the Sacaean way, but she loved it all the same.

"I know why you came here, daughter of the Lorca. You are already a chieftain in your own right, seeking to protect your tribe." Chief Dayan inhaled from the shared pipe, then shook his head once. "But it cannot be done. Father Sky and Mother Earth forbid it. We move in accordance to them, not to the pleas in our heart. That is all I can offer to you, as one chief to another."

Lyn lowered her head, and this time her gaze fell to the pattern work of the rugs on the floor. "I see." Rising to her feet, she tried to keep her expression calm, accepting, even though in her heart she wanted to rage at Father Sky and Mother Earth--a sin beyond sins. "Then I must hurry back. Thank you for seeing me."

"You are welcome here anytime before we prepare to leave. I did not know your father well beyond what I have heard from the wind, but he was a man to follow."

"Ah, yes." While looking at Chief Dayan's face, she thought she had seen something familiar in the arch of his eyebrow, concern that was suppressed but still seen. "Chief of the Kutolah, your tribe is known as one of the three great tribes of the Sacae Plains. Among your people, was one of them named Rath?"

All the men of the chieftain's entourage looked at her, sharp glares under furrowed brows. But it was only the chief who spoke. "Kutolah matters are for Kutolah only." His tone was not sharp; actually, Lyn thought it was quite bland, all things considering.

It only proved her thought right--Rath was once of the Kutolah. But why had he left? To what end did he wander? She wished they had been close enough that he could have felt able to tell her these things, but it was no longer possible.

She thanked Chief Dayan once again, and returned to watch over Sain with the rest of her friends.

-0-

That night, while everyone slept, Lyn sat at Sain's bedside and stared down at his face with the night-piercing eyes of an owl, her hand on the hilt of the dagger she wore on her belt.

Sain had lain on the ground since their arrival days ago, with only a sturdy woolen blanket separating him from the dirt. His armor was against the taut cloth wall of the ger, stripped off by Kent's practiced fingers when the healer had asked for it to be removed, and continually polished by Florina because it unnerved the girl to be near Sain's body even if he was still sleeping. His shirt was gone too, folded on top of his shiny breastplate, and Lyn knew that if Sain had any idea that she was the one who changed the bandages swathing his chest and shoulders he would be incorrigible.

She wanted him to be incorrigible. She wanted him to annoy her, annoy all of them, because that was better than this. That was better than having to stare down at his motionless form now with her hand on the hilt of the dagger she used to skin rabbits for their dinner, the dagger that she kept sharp enough to slice through skin and flesh and probably even a throat, if it came down to that.

Mercy.

The word made her think of a winter, so many years ago, when a sickness came upon the Lorca. Most of them recovered; her mother and herself among them. But some of the elderly members hadn't the strength of youth and they wasted away until her father gave Kajht, their healer, a single nod. Then, after that, she and the other children had to find stones to build the oovo, burial monuments, for the graves of the sick who could never have recovered.

"They didn't have a chance!" her mother had yelled at her father after the ceremony, her voice strained and her lovely face drawn. Lyn remembered that her father had said nothing at all, as was often his wont, but this time the silence was something different, something colder, and out of all the years they lived together as a family it was the only time she could remember her mother and father being so harsh towards each other. Now, at fifteen years old and an adult in her own right, Lyn could see both their sides--her mother, who thought it had been cruel, and her father, who had to make the decision to end the suffering of the sick.

Slowly, she drew her dagger. It sounded like a sigh, and her very heart trembled to hear it.

With the night-piercing eyes of the owl, she stared at Sain's face. Without his ever-present smile he looked wrong, and for one moment she hated him. She hated the man who was lying there looking like Sain but wasn't because he wasn't smiling, he wasn't laughing, he wasn't living.

And if he wasn't going to do either of those things by the time the Kutolah left, Lyn would have to kill him.

Her body shook at the realization of the truth. What was mercy was also murder. Here, now, they were inseparable and she didn't have the power to separate them.

Here, now, all her gains towards true strength meant nothing.

Sliding the dagger back into its hilt with a nearly inaudible click, she reached out and touched his face with one bare hand. He had a few days' worth of stubble, and with it and the daytime light he no longer looked himself. If this new Sain smiled or laughed, he wouldn't look boyish or troublesome or incorrigible. He'd look like he needed a shave. She bit her lower lip and pretended she was trying to hide a smile as she stroked his cheek, bristles and all. Having never touched a man's face before, she thought it would feel different inside her than it would be if she touched Florina's face to calm her best friend down, but it didn't. She wondered if it was because this man wasn't really Sain at all.

She exhaled, thinking Sain, I'm sorry for taking too many liberties with you when you're not even awake to enjoy it.

The needy, insistent urge to cry suddenly hit her, and she withdrew her hand and covered her face and stayed that way until she could pretend that she was never going to cry in the first place. When she lowered her hand she had nobody's eyes but her own and couldn't see through the darkness that surrounded her. All she could do creep to the thin mat she was using as a bed and ignore the weight of the dagger resting on her hip as she laid on her back and closed her eyes.

-0-

The next day was the fourth day, and after arranging and tightening Sain's bandages Lyn escaped from the ger and went to groom Sain's horse. As Sacaeans loved horses, both his and Kent's horses as well as Florina's pegasus were treated by the Kutolah as special guests--not that she could complain about the tribe's treatment of herself and her friends, so long as they left the healer's ger as little as possible. Nobody had for the other days except for necessary reasons, so to leave the ger and groom the horses was supposed to be an escape.

"Lyn! Hey, Lyn!"

Lyn held back a sigh as she heard Wil's calls grow louder. After patting the horse's flank, she walked over to the entrance of the large fenced-in area where the tribe's horses were allowed to graze, where Wil lingered with a wary look aimed at the horses. "Wil, is something wrong?" she asked once she reached him, her innate sense of concern overriding her need to be alone.

Wil, who was holding himself loosely, bent his head and reached up with one arm to rub the back of his head, a sheepish look on his face. "Um...actually I was thinking that was kind of my question."

She crossed her arms, confused and short on patience. "What?"

"I mean.." He looked at her, his look both oddly serious as well as something else, something unidentifiable, that made her frown in response. "I saw you last night."

Lyn went so still that it felt like it was her natural state of being. "Wil, I..." But she had no words. How could she, when she still remembered the weight of the dagger in her hand as she knelt over Sain's prone body?

"So...how are you?"

"What?"

"You know." Wil smiled, though he still looked sheepish. "You looked really down. I mean, of course we're supposed to be like that, considering...but you looked really, really, really--"

"Okay, I get it," she interrupted, holding her sword hand up as her other arm curled more tightly around her waist. "And you're right. I-I don't know what to do. It feels like I can't do anything at all."

Wil nodded. "I know. I feel the same way. You know, ever since Caelin, we've been kinda helpless but it was still okay because we were together. Now it's like...it's strange. All we can do is wait."

"...About that," Lyn said, lowering her gaze to the yellow-green grass so familiar to her. The sight of her homeland should've been a blessing from the gods, but right now Mother Earth was impassive. "I need to tell you something."

"What is it?"

Her head snapping up, Lyn found herself staring directly into Kent's eyes. "Kent!" she said, surprise and nervousness coiling in her stomach like grass snakes. However much she hadn't wanted to say what she needed to before, the unpleasantness of her job now was magnified as she saw the dark smudges under his eyes, the laxity in his step. For a man who kept himself so rigid in the face of his duty, the signs she saw in him were that of a controlled breakdown.

And what--she was going to tell him that, come tomorrow, there was no hope for Sain? That the only mercy she could offer their dear, fallen friend was at the end of a knife?

Was that all?

"Lady Lyndis, perhaps I'm interrupting?"

"No, no you aren't. I...I need to tell this to you, too." Lyn took a deep breath. "The Kutolah are leaving tomorrow."

Both men stared at her, uncomprehending for one long, blissful moment. Then Wil slowly began to shake his head. "Hey, wait. That's not...what does that mean for us? For Sain?"

Lyn had always prided herself on her straightforward manner, her back as unflinching as her morals, but here she failed; she looked down. "In the fall, Sain not only fractured his collarbone, he hit his head. You know this. Sometimes, people don't wake up from that."

"But I was hit in the head, and I'm perfectly fine now!" Wil protested, but she could hear it as well as anyone else that there was no heart in his words.

They all knew, didn't they?

"Kent?" She looked at him, her eyes taking in his impassive features, from his smooth brow to his slightly parted lips. That there was not even one wrinkle of stress worried her. "Kent, are you all right?"

He closed his eyes, his eyebrows slanting downward. "What would you have me do?"

Lyn looked away, into Wil's anguished face, then towards the many horses in the spacious pen. "I don't want Sain to suffer. In Sacae, because of the way we live, we don't let people linger forever. That's cruel, so...I don't know if you understand, but--"

"I understand," Kent responded. "My father had not wanted to linger, either." The words, so simply spoken, caused Lyn to face him, all at once surprised that it was not just an invention of her people as well as feeling the need to reach out for him, even though there was so little emotion in his words.

There was relief inside her, too.

"You needn't worry any longer," he continued. "Sain is...I will do it."

"Do what?" Wil asked, a deeply suspicious tone in his question. "What does that mean? What are you going to do?"

She could feel the guilt pounding in time with her heartbeat as she turned to him, the rare flash of anger on his face looking more like a wince of pain than real fury. He was shaking, and she admired that he could so easily show his emotions, knowing fully well that she couldn't do that anymore, not without feeling foolish, childish afterward. If she could, he'd know that she didn't want to do this either. She wanted another option. But to say that the day after Chief Dayan praised her so...she was Sacaean, so...

Shaking his head, Wil kept his eyes on her. There was desperation in his eyes, a desperation that felt so familiar, but there was also an understanding that was his own to claim. "You can't, Lyn. I know you don't want to do this. Sain's kind of inconsiderate about these things, right? He likes to take his own sweet time. We just--we just have to wait him out. You know that." He reached out to her, his fingers lightly touching the short sleeve of her del. "Lyn, this isn't right. We...it's the five of us. We've always stuck together, we, we can't change that now."

Don't tell me my own thoughts. But even as she thought that, she stared at his shoulder as she said, "I'm sorry, Wil."

"I don't...believe you." A flicker of something truly painful crossed his face as he lowered his arm. "You know this is wrong, you know that..." He turned his head towards Kent, who she couldn't face after his agreement. "Kent, he's like your best friend, isn't he? So why are you--there's no way you want to do this. C'mon, you can't do this. You can't just turn your back and run away when you know that staying together is what's right for us. Don't you know that?"

"When the Kutolah leave, it will still take at least two days for us to reach Bulgar. To transport him, to feed him...and he may just die anyway, except that he'll starve to death, or he'll..." Lyn couldn't speak anymore, the words sour in her mouth. They did not taste like words she could stand behind, words that resembled the truth, but she had to say them all the same because this was all she saw she could do.

Wil shook his head one last time. "This is wrong." Before she could respond, if even she had the words to do so, he turned around and stormed off. She had never seen him so angry before. She was angry too, angry that this was the only path she could see that made sense, that would be best, that was true to her heritage.

She had no choice.

-0-

That night, she waited outside the ger with Florina and Wil while Kent stepped inside with her dagger. Kent hadn't wanted anything of hers to be attached to this act, but she had insisted; it was her choice, and she knew he was only abiding by it because of his sense of loyalty. She would not turn away from this decision to commit mercy, and so it was up to her to take in as much guilt as necessary. Florina hovered nervously at her elbow; Wil, who had not said a single thing to anybody since he returned earlier than evening, stood as far away from the doorway as possible while still standing in sight of it.

Look at her. Look at what she was doing to everyone. More than anything, she knew that this was going to destroy them because she knew that Wil would never see her as anything more than a murderer again. The way Florina had carefully shielded her gaze as Lyn tried to explain to her, to the both of them, why this was necessary had stung just as hard as Wil's pleading. Pegasus knights probably didn't do this sort of thing either, or Florina was just too kindhearted.

This was a kindness, too, to let Sain's spirit fly away with all the freedom that he craved, that he couldn't have while trapped in a body that only slept. It was mercy.

It was.

The flap of the ger was pushed aside with a soft sound, and Kent walked out. Everyone stared at him as he approached Lyn, and she looked down at his hands as he returned her dagger. The blade shone silver in the waning moon's light. All she could do was nod before she took her dagger back and began her own walk into the ger, her stomach churning painfully all the while. Kneeling down at Sain's bedside, she placed the blade against his throat. She had done this before, she could do it again.

Her arm wouldn't move.

She could hear her heartbeat in her ears, she could look down at the dagger pressed against Sain's throat, but she couldn't move her arm to--to give him the mercy she believed he needed. It felt like all the air she was taking into her body did nothing to nourish it, that the earth underneath her did not give her the stability she needed. She couldn't hear anything of the gods, only her own heartbeat.

The sound of the doorway flap being pushed back reached her ears, soft footsteps sounding behind her. It was Florina, she always knew when it was Florina because she knew nobody alive half as well as her dearest friend.

"Lyn...don't."

Her eyes hurt. They stung. They felt hot. She hurt and she felt hot, but she was frozen by indecision and could do nothing about it. She heard Florina approach her, sit down behind her, and she felt it keenly when her best friend leaned against her back while running her hands up onto her shoulders.

"This isn't like you. Shouldn't we try our best to help him?"

Wasn't this helping him? They had no guarantees that he would ever wake again. The Kutolah said--her memory of her father said--

"I know you don't want to do this. If you did, I wouldn't...wouldn't stop you. But I know you, Lyn, so..."

Lyn closed her eyes as she felt Florina's hands tighten on her shoulders, her heart constricting just as tightly.

"Don't."

I'm weak, Lyn thought. I'm so weak.

"Lyn...?"

Lyn stood, sheathing her dagger in one fluid motion as she wrapped her other arm around Florina's petite waist and drew her best friend near. Bending down, she placed her forehead against Florina's and said, "Thank you." Florina edged nearer, her small hands fluttering along Lyn's waist.

"It's okay. I just...I know you, so..."

"Yeah, you do." Lyn straightened her posture before heading towards the doorway, her arm still around Florina's waist. They exited the ger into the cool night, where Kent and Wil were waiting for them. "This is what we're going to do," Lyn started with no preamble. "Kent, ready the horses. Wil, you're going to help me wrap up Sain in blankets. Florina, you'll get Sain's armor to carry."

"Uh, wait, what?" Through the light of Father Sky's closing eye, she could see the rising hope on Wil's face as he stared at her. Kent was looking at her too, his expression impossible for her to read past the shock.

"We're gong to strap Sain's body across the horses and hurry to Bulgar. I...I know people who will help him if I ask." She didn't want to think about that right now, so the next words burst out of her as if she was shoving the prior words out of existence. "I'm not sure how we're all going to ride, but we'll make do somehow."

Wil rushed forward, his expression normal and happy once again. "Yeah, we will! So come on, let's do this!"

Nodding, Lyn followed Wil back into the ger, this time not to take Sain's life but to save it, if possible. But she couldn't ignore the nagging feeling inside of her, the one that said that she was going against her culture, her tribal beliefs, by choosing to follow her nature. It made her wonder if she was doing this out of as much fear of following the nomadic way as the hope that Sain could be saved.

It made her wonder how Sacaean she truly was.

-to be continued-

It's been over a year since I last posted a chapter. I'm very sorry to have left you on a cliffhanger for that long. And, I'm not sure if anyone was quite expecting this chapter to be prolonged argument about euthanasia, but I hope you didn't mind it. This was a difficult chapter because of a lot of factors, but this past year and a half has been very instructive in regards to my writing skills and what I want for this story. I know this is going to be a difficult chapter for some people to take in, but I hope you can trust me to tell a story that makes sense.